


Language & Perspective

by glimpseofbliss



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Partying, Rock Stars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-05-22 12:33:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6079494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimpseofbliss/pseuds/glimpseofbliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kira's a musician, Boyd likes to run away from his problems.</p><p>This series is written around the album Language & Perspective by Bad Suns</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Matthew James

**Author's Note:**

> [ Matthew James.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAex2LYKMdE)

Alex rolls onto her side, mumbling in her sleep about flying penguins. It’s something that Boyd used to find endearing, now he just finds it plain annoying. Her small hand searches for him and when she touches empty space she shoots up, blonde hair sticking up in little tufts. He’s standing by the window, pretending to watch the tv when she gives him a tiny smirk.

“Restless?” Her tone is too casual, reminding him that this can be over in a second. 

“Nervous about the flight tomorrow.” He lies easily, watching her face switch from curiosity to understanding. Makes him sick.

“Oh, honey.” A scoff, not his own but the dark head’s, she called him honey. It curls around his gut like venom, making him want to run. “I know how nervous you get. Come lay with me and try not to think too much about it, a good cuddle will get your mind off of it.” She goes for soft and caring, but her smile comes out sharp and calculating and he takes it for what it really means. It’s not a request but an order, ‘Come lay down and be a good puppet.’

He smiles, throwing himself into bed and arranging himself so she fits into his side. She says I love you and he repeats it, pulling her closer when she curls into him. He should feel comforted by her warm body clinging to him, but the TV is what eventually lulls him to sleep.

It’s normal, just like he wanted. To be normal and in love.

 

On the drive to the airport, Alex runs him through the list of people in her family that’s supposed to be there. Losing him periodically as she drones on with a lazy smirk.

“Uncle Vande is coming from Germany, he’s a little eccentric.” She gives him a tight smile and pushes her sunglasses up her face. Boyd thinks he smiles back but he can’t remember, is too focused on how the hum of the car makes something in his chest tingle with want.

What does he want? He doesn't know.

The flight into Nevada consisted of Alex chatting in his ear, holding his hand loosely like she’d rather not but she had to keep appearances up.

Alex was calculating and lukewarm, cautious and content with the normal American Dream. A good career, a good (enough) husband, a nice house, three kids and a cat. She had no time for cheesecake binges in Italy. No time for spending weekends wrapped up around him or write a short 300 page novel during the middle of a world tour.

She was everything Kira never had the patience to be.

She was every ounce of boredom Boyd was looking for.

“You're acting weird.”

“Sorry, a bit nervous.”

“No, you aren't. You have that look in your eye like you're itching to do something crazy. Don’t, Christmas Eve is tomorrow.” She grabs his hand as he grabs the bags, plastering a sloppy grin on her face that belongs to someone less Alex. He follows her gaze to see who she was putting on a show for. It's her parents, standing there in their conservative clothing with their conservative smiles.  
A last call announcement to New York booms over the sound system, it makes his chest ache.

 

Boyd's sitting in the family dining room, doing his best to drown out the political talk at the table. It's none of his business, he's just here for show.

“So Boyd, when do you think you’ll be giving us grandchildren?” He drops his fork and Alex's smile is warm and inviting but she's looking at him with questioning eyes.

She says’ soon’ as he says ‘no time soon’ and he has to excuse himself before he loses it in an unconservative way. He stumbles towards the kitchen, stopping for a second before running into the yard. He finally meets Vande whose hair, longer than Alex’s and blonder if possible, he almost steps on. He jumps back and Vande unfolds himself from the ground, runs a quick hand through his hair before he grins.

“You hate them, right?” His accent is sharper than Verena’s, but softer as if talking an octave too high would scare him out of his shell.

“I…” Vande laughs, the way Kira used to when he talked about settling down.

“I hate them too, even Verena bless her heart. You don’t belong here and I need a smoke, Troy won’t let me smoke on the premises. Asshole.” Boyd finds himself smiling genuinely, watching Vande prowl back and forth. The conservative family he just walked out on laughs as the door closes completely.  
“Would you wanna go for a ride? I don't mind smoking in the car, we’ll be back by like 12.” Boyd hates how excited he sounds, for the first time in almost two years he sounds like he actually wants to be alive.

“If you want, but we don't have to come back?” It's sneaky, spontaneous and exactly what Boyd wants to do.

“Alex’s clothes are still in my car, my clothes are still in her house. We are supposed to get engaged tomorrow.” Boyd doesn't care about the engagement or the clothes, he just doesn't want to feel like shit when he wakes up in the morning next to a hypocritical blonde.

“Verena is going to be upset I took her daughter's prospective husband then.” His grin is wicked, all teeth and no joy.

“Y-yyeah. What's your sister gonna tell your mom? And what would they think.” Stalling so when asked he can at least say he protested before leaving.

“She's dead and wolves don't lose sleep over the opinion of the sheep.”

The last thing Boyd can remember from that night is Vande throwing Alex’s suitcase out the window.


	2. We Move Like The Ocean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPD3Ft0oE4A>%20We%20Move%20Like%20The%20Ocean.</a>)

Vande left him on the border of California with a pack of cigarettes and a unsteady salute. Boyd was pretty sure he was going to live in the desert. He couldn't decide who was crazier, him or Vande. Safe bet was on himself since he was the one driving to San Francisco in a rental.

He knew he was chasing memories but he couldn’t help it.

Kira was the best part of him, even when she was a thundering storm, she made him better.

 

Getting to San Francisco that night left him a bundle of nerves and anxiety. Driving down their old block left his hands burning on the steering wheel and his throat dry. He didn’t even know if she lived here anymore, didn’t know if she was the same person he left a year ago. Only knew he wanted to see her again and didn’t care if she smiled at him like he hung the moon for her or spits in his face. He just wanted to see his girl.

There’s a parking spot right across the street from the house and he stops there. Can't help shaking like he’s standing naked in the snow. He sits there in silence, staring at the front door that he painted purple three summers ago. Opening his car door is the hardest thing he’s done all weekend and the walk up the steps is no better. It’s treacherous and terrifying to return to something he spent so long running from. He’d rather run away if he’s honest but…

He’s tired of coasting.

When the door opens, he can’t see anything for a moment. Only focuses on the green hallway that he's spent years in and he feels old and tired now. Too tired to be here doing this to himself.

“Boyd?” Kira whispers, yanking the door wider and finally finally he looks at her. It’s a slap in the face to see how much has changed, almost like he didn’t expect her to continue living without him. Like he thought she would freeze in time just waiting for him to come back. It’s a selfish thought but as he looks at the tattoos and the ear length hair, he wishes she would’ve waited for him.

“Kira.” And he knows what to say, he spent 14 hours practicing what to say. But when he's in front of Kira, who’s on the verge of tears. His mind is blank and his tongue is weighing down his mouth with thousands of apologies.

“I fucking hate you, Vernon.” She means it, she means it and it takes everything in him not to start crying right then and there. And even after that, everything he has isn't enough to stop the tears from staining his cheeks. “Why’d you come back? I just… I just got the taste of you off my tongue. How could you?” Kira screams, pulling him in by his shirt and slamming the door shut. She'd tear his head off but would never let the public see her have a meltdown.  
“I’m I.”

“Shut up, sit down.” She rubs at her eyes and sits down in an armchair that wasn’t there when he left.  
They stare at each other, Kira sucking all the air out of the room and Boyd is just so so grateful to suffocate for her.  
“Don’t say you’re sorry. You’re not sorry. I saw your girlfriend, Alish? Alex? She’s fucking beautiful, if you don’t mind me saying. Is that who you’ve been with for all this time.”

“Yes. Her name is Alex.” He only answers questions because he knows he isn’t going to fix this by pushing his way in with apologies. Not that he thought that in the first place. He knows that with Kira, words mean nothing and that every word requires an action to ring true.

“Did you enjoy your time with her?” She tucks her legs to her chin and wipes her face with fervor, staring at the stain on Boyd’s jeans instead of his face.

“No, I can’t remember mo-.”

“Shh, ahh uh okay. Why are you back?” Her voice cuts off into a whisper and her hands are threatening to pull patches of hair out of her hair.

“It became too much. I was drowning with her.”

“You were drowning with me too!” She screams, flinging herself out of the seat and into the wall next to her. He flinches at the impact, watches her throw a picture to the ground and just cries. He doesn’t know why he’s crying, hates that he’s crying because he knows she’s going to pity him. And he doesn’t want her pat on the back, he deserves all her anger. Every last ounce of hatred that she’s going to throw his way in these upcoming months, he deserves it. And he isn’t going to stop until every ounce of it is cried, screamed, and thrown out her body. But right now he just needs to cry, because the person he loves the most is falling apart in front of him and he can't fix it. Kira pushes herself up against the wall like she’s scared he’s going to touch her. Like he wasn’t a part of her for four years and he’s not sure if his heart can actually hurt more than it already does.

“Please don’t kick me out. I have nowhere to go, I don’t w-.”

“I’m not kicking you out. You can take the guest room.” Her voice is hoarse and he hates that she sounds the way he feels. “Goodnight.”

She goes upstairs without looking back and Boyd doesn’t think he could stop crying tonight even if he tried.


	3. Cardiac Arrest

It’s been three weeks and Kira hasn’t said a single thing to him. Left a copy of the house key on the dining table and drove him to the car rental place downtown when he asked, but besides that she’s been a ghost around the house. In those three weeks he still hasn’t seen or heard a peep from Isaac, assumes he’s avoiding him when he knocks on Isaac’s door one day and is met with utter silence.

Boyd deserves it, deserves every moment they spend pretending he isn’t there. Deserves the way his heart tugs when he smells Kira’s perfume outside his door or the way his stomach queases when he hears her laugh. He just wants to talk to her, to tell her his side and get her to understand him because she’s always been the only one willing to try. 

He can’t believe he thought he’d be over her, can’t believe he thought that even for a second that he would be fine without her singing the worst Beatles song she knows in the kitchen or dropping everything possible on her way to the bathroom at midnight.

He just wants to speak to her, even if it’s not about them or why he left. He needs to talk to her or he’s going to lose his fucking mind. He came back for her and is sick of only getting her presence, which at first he was more than grateful for, but at this point he’d rather have her yelling at him then pretending he doesn’t exist.

Boyd feels bad for cornering her in the kitchen, because of how tiny and torn apart she looks. If he was a better man he’d leave and never think about her again, thought that was what he was going to do originally but as usual his chest craved a brighter burn than anyone could give him and he was a selfish, ugly man.

“Are you not going to speak to me?” He’s met with silence and a slightly picked up stir as Kira beats the eggs, pointedly not looking towards him. “I can think of three reasons why this is not an effective tactic.” The fork clatters against the bowl and he braces himself, not that she’d ever hit him but anger makes people different. Makes them ugly.

“I can think of three reasons why you coming back here is the worst decision you’ve ever made.” He smiles because he can’t help it, because he loves her so much even when she’s hellbent on tearing him apart limb from limb, he loves her.

“You act like you weren’t there when me and Isaac bought Ashmeklyn.” Ashmeklyn was the tractor that Isaac and Boyd had bought when they first moved to San Francisco, when everything was fine and the only thing that made Kira sad was The Lovely Bones and Boyd waking up the dogs.

“You can’t make jokes. No... fucking jokes from you. God.” She picks up the fork again and whisks faster than needed, maneuvering around Boyd like he’s always been standing there in her way.

“Kira, please just talk to me. I came back, because I miss you so much. I came back and…”

“You shouldn’t have left in the first place! Tell me why you left, tell me the real reason you fucking left me here. You know you didn’t even bother calling me, you didn’t even call Isaac. You just upped and left like we weren’t shit to you. Tell me why you fucking left since you want to talk so bad.” The bowl’s slammed back onto the counter and Boyd almost feels sorry that it’s taking the brunt of the anger that should be aimed towards him. 

And now’s the moment of truth and he’s standing there with his tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth and he doesn’t know whether or not he wants to cry or scream back, if he’d be justified in doing anything besides just telling her. When he left he didn’t think about how intertwined their lives were until the very thought of calling Isaac made his chest hurt with loss and longing. He left it all behind, every single ounce of his life and now he’s here groveling and apologizing, missing how comforting Isaac’s laugh was and how easy it was to exist in this house.

He’s ashamed, Boyd is ashamed that he left them. Because they’re the only two people who genuinely cared about him, the only two people who built a home and made sure he knew that it would collapse without him there and he left them in the dirt with a broken tractor and a messily scribbled goodbye note. He left for normalcy, he left because he wanted to work a 9 to 5 and not worry about paparazzi crowding him at his front door, he left because he couldn’t stand being in China then Tokyo then Australia in the span of five days, because everything about Kira was odd and his mother always told him that boring would keep him breathing. 

Looking down at Kira right now he doesn’t believe his mother one bit. Can’t believe that he thought that leaving would somehow right every oddity in his life because he’s here, sleeping in the guest room he furnished, breaking the heart of the only person he’s ever loved and missing the very place he’s standing inside of as if it’s been torn down.

“The last tour. The last tour took everything from me. I needed a regular life and I knew I couldn’t ask you for that so-.”

“You could’ve asked me for the world and i would’ve broken my back to give it to you. You could’ve asked me for anything and I would’ve done it for you. Do you realize how fucking selfish you are? I thought you’d been murdered, that that half ass fucking note you left was fake. I cried for five months straight, nearly tore myself apart because I thought that I did something wrong. Isaac, fucking hell Isaac fell off the wagon again did you know that? Didn’t you wonder why he wasn’t here to break your nose? He’s back in rehab, blaming himself because you left. But no that’s all fucking fine, because you needed normal.” Kira looks weak, like she can barely hold herself up anymore and all she needs is a little wind in her direction and she’s down for the count.

Kira’s broken and Isaac’s in rehab and there isn’t a single thing in the universe that Boyd can do to fix it. He’d give every limb, every ounce of blood in his body just to make it all okay again. But Kira’s collapsed onto the floor, her head buried between her lap and he feels like the entire world is on fire and he’s the one who’s supposed to put them out but he can’t because his hands are seared from starting it.

He slides down the cabinet behind him, because he’s just so tired, so sick of fucking up. His heart is as heavy as lead and he wishes he could run right now but he can’t even open his eyes and face Kira, can’t face the damage he’s caused in her life.

“Why didn’t you call me? When Isaac went back?” His voice isn’t working the way he wants it to because every emotion he’s feeling is pushing it’s way out onto his tongue and he never knew he was this weak, he’s a coward and he’s ungrateful and he’s selfish but he’s always thought of himself as strong. 

“He made me promise not to, wanted you to live your perfect fucking life. I haven’t toured since you left, I’ve made music but I don’t plan on releasing it until a while after he gets out. Not that you care, not that it changes anything. But I put that all on hold to make sure he’s fine.” And Boyd feels sick, because Kira’s trying to comfort him when he’s caused all of this and he is so so so undeserving. A sob tears out of his throat, so loud that Kira slams herself against the cabinet in shock.

“I’m so fucking sorry.” Hiding his face in his hands because he doesn’t want to see her sympathy, doesn’t want her to see that he’s officially caught on fire and there’s no chance of saving anyone anymore.

“I know.”


	4. Pretend

They’re not back to normal, Boyd isn’t sure they’ll ever be normal again. But right now Kira’s laying at the other end of the couch laughing at at the T.V and asking him about his job in Los Angeles. Her eyes are swollen, her cheeks still red from the disaster in the kitchen and Boyd is having a real tough time answering questions about his other life when the only thing he’s ever really wanted is sitting across from him running her thumb under her nose.

“Well, what I mean is did you actually desi-.”

“Do you really fucking care?” He spits out and she tucks her feet under her, cocking her head at him. He doesn't mean to sound so angry, so venomous, but he’s sick of pretending that he liked anything he’s done in the past two years.

Kira blinks, sits up and hides her hands in her sweater, looking towards the T.V before turning back towards Boyd. 

“I hate when you do that, I feel like you’re going to slit my throat every time you do that.” Boyd laughs, running his hands over his face so he doesn't feel as vulnerable. His life is going to shit right before his eyes and all he can do is make jokes. When Kira laughs he stops, stops breathing and rubbing and just listens to her high pitched laugh fill the room.

“God, that was a terrible image. I don’t think I ever could slit a throat. Especially yours.”

“Especially mines?” He knows he’s pushing it, that she can go back to ignoring his existence at any moment but he’s more bothered by the possibility of not getting an answer than being ignored.

“You could break my heart fifty times over and I still could never imagine a world without you in it.”

 

They’re on the road, Kira’s sitting up on the edge of the seat, sunglasses pushed onto her face. The windows are all down and Boyd would complain about being cold if hearing Kira sing the same songs that used to drive him crazy wasn’t making his chest explode with butterflies.

“You think he’s gonna be upset to see me?” Boyd yells over the radio and the wind, keeping his eyes trained on Kira’s hands. She laughs, pushes her sunglasses off her face and turns down the radio all while switching over three lanes to get to the exit.

“He’s gonna be pissed but not at you.” She smiles over at him, turning the radio back up so he knows not to ask her anymore questions.

 

The place that Isaac’s staying in is unsettling, it’s all white and smells too much like an emergency room for Boyd to actually believe Isaac’s getting help here. The receptionist smiles at Kira like she’s known her for years and it makes everything about this situation even worse.

They shouldn’t be familiar to rehab receptionists. They should be at home, making fun of Boyd’s attempt at album art, sleeping on the living room floor because they don’t understand that they aren’t 17 anymore, they just don’t bounce back like they used to.

“Hey, you’re here early today.” The receptionist says, moving from behind her desk to come and hug Kira. 

“Yeah, well I wanted to get here before the soul sucking group therapy. He’s always bitchy after that.”

“Oh stop, it’s not soul sucking it’s very therapeutic.” They walk ahead like old friends, chattering on about group therapies and things that Boyd can’t even pretend to care about because if Isaac looks like half the people littering these hallways he’s gonna lose his stomach. The receptionist, who hasn’t let go of Kira’s hand since she walked in here, stops at a door at the end of the hallway and slips Kira a key. “You know the drill, make sure he’s out here by lunch or he’s barred from visitors for a week.” Kira nods, pulls her hand loose and reaches for Boyd who grabs her like he’s being sucked into the ground. When the receptionist walks away, eyes lingering on Kira for so long she walks right into a patient, Kira grabs both of his hands and stares him down for a long time.

“Don’t do that thing that you like to do. Don’t make him think you feel bad for him, just treat him like you would always treat Isaac.” She whispers, squeezing his hands lightly before she turns to unlock the door. 

Isaac’s laying halfway off the bed, headphones in his ear, iPod on the floor and a book resting on his chest. His head is shaven but besides that he looks exactly the same. Boyd doesn’t know why in the world he thought his Isaac would look any different than the day he left. Isaac had a tendency of keeping things normal for Boyd, just so Boyd always had a home to go back to. 

He lowers himself to the ground and pauses the music, tapping Isaac’s leg three times. He watches Isaac open his eyes, look down at him and close his eyes again. Boyd’s chest clenches up and he wants nothing more than to scream at Isaac, tell him to get better so they can never come back to this place. But he doesn’t, he pulls his legs to his chest and watches Isaac’s book rising and falling with his every breath until it starts shaking with his laughter.

“That bitch nurse put me on some new meds for my headaches. Told me I might be out of it a lot of the time when I take them but I didn’t fucking think I would start hallucinating assholes.” He runs his hand over his face and lets it flop onto the floor, looking down at Boyd again.

“Well, when you never get any, your imagination and your hand is all you got.” The room is silent for a second before Kira splutters out a laugh, dropping down onto the floor between them with rosy cheeks and messy hair.

“You’re still as unfunny as ever, get out of my hotel room.” He snatches Kira’s glasses from her face and pushes them on, hitting Boyd with a lazy smile that makes his eyes water.

Boyd wants to know, wants to know if it was really him that made Isaac go off the deep end. If there’s something he can do to fix any of this so his heart can stop hurting every time he looks at Kira and Isaac isn’t sitting right there behind her, so they aren’t congregating on rehab center floors and Isaac doesn’t have IV’s in his arm and Kira isn’t looking at him like he might break if she blinks the wrong way.

They talk idly, about the shitty food there, about Kira’s new haircut, about how unsymmetrical Isaac’s face is until Isaac sits up completely. Kira falls forward onto Boyd and this should be terrible for both of them, but she just turns to face Isaac and settles herself back onto the ground, slightly leaning on his shoulder. “Did you find whatever you were looking for?” Isaac looks like he’s just found out Santa doesn’t exist and it’s all Boyd’s fault, and even though he knows he deserves it he can’t help the flash of anger that rips up his throat. He closes his eyes, tries to formulate a response that doesn’t end up in disaster. Kira grabs his leg and Isaac laughs, loud and high pitched, like all he’s ever wanted was to tear Boyd apart.

And he knows he’s succeeding.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. My therapist says that I need to start being more open about my emotions and shit like that, so what I meant to say is that right I just wanna hug you and punch you at the same time because I miss you but I hate the fact that you left.” Boyd’s eyes are still closed and Kira’s still holding his leg and he feels guilty again, because once again she’s trying to comfort him when he deserves every ounce of venom thrown at him. When he finally opens his eyes again, he’s not looking at the Isaac in front of him with a prison cut and IV holes littering his arm, the one who’s trying to rebuild himself after destroying it all. He’s looking at the Isaac who climbed through his bedroom window on the night Boyd was planning to kill himself and fell asleep on his lap talking about how much he loves lemon squares, the boy who thought that the only way to find out if he was truly bi was to kiss both Kira and Boyd (he didn’t find out his sexuality that night but Boyd definitely did.), the boy who cried at every single one of Kira’s shows for two years straight _(“No, okay.” He’d shriek, wiping his eyes and wringing his hands every five seconds. “That’s my fucking pal and she’s up there being a fucking superstar, Boyd stop laughing.”)_

“I hate that I left too.” Isaac nods, bites his bottom lip and nods again. Boyd watches his face crumple and recreate itself, he watches Isaac’s eyes water up before he finally throws himself into Boyd’s lap. Crumbling the back of his shirt in his hand to make sure that he’s real, Boyd buries his face in Isaac’s shoulder, let's the tears that’d been building up since he woke up this morning fall down his cheeks. The way Isaac’s trembling in his arms, holding onto him so tight it burns, feels like a kick in the chest and he's trying his best to pay attention to what Isaac is saying but he's too busy trying to commit his scent to memory.

When they're in the car again, Kira oddly silent and Boyd exhausted from crying, he thinks about it again. The soft, broken whispers echoing in his head keep him from passing out against the car window, keep him from tuning into every movement Kira makes.

“Do you know what Isaac was saying?” He asks, watching Kira’s hair whip around her face. She looks smaller than she did before, like there was less of her after today and he's glad he isn't the only one feeling that way.

“When?” She shuts off the radio, sparing a glance over at Boyd.

“When we were hugging.” She stiffens up, stops drumming her fingers against the steering wheel and it terrifies him. What if Isaac was telling him to never come back? What if he was telling him that he was better off without him and that they’ll never be a family again? What if h-

“He was saying don’t leave me again.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very late Christmas Gift for a friend.


End file.
